From: Elina Karakulova (ekarakulova@sorosny.org)
Date: Thu Jul 03 2003 - 13:27:13 EDT
PLIGHT OF REFUGEES IN KAZAKHSTAN DESCRIBED
There are about 2,350 Afghan refugees presently living in Kazakhstan, along with some 12,000 refugees from Chechnya, more than 4,000 from Tajikistan, and an unspecified number of Uighurs from China, gazeta.kz reported on 3 July. Most of them have been recognized as refugees by the UNHCR office in Kazakhstan, but not by the government, although Kazakhstan acceded to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol in February 1999. The UNHCR has concluded an agreement with the Kazakh authorities under which Chechen refugees are admitted into Kazakhstan as long as the situation in Chechnya remains unstable. Persons recognized as refugees by the UNHCR obtain certificates of their status from that agency. However, according to the article, some Kazakh authorities are refusing to register refugees as residents, which means that they cannot work legally or send their children to school. Identity documents provided to the Chechens by the Russian Embassy in Kazakhstan are not being accepted either. A protection officer in the UNHCR office in Kazakhstan was quoted as saying that authorities in some parts of the country, including Almaty, are trying to force the Chechens to leave. The article reports that the attitude of the general population to all refugees is "cool" -- neither friendly nor antagonistic. BB
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